The author of what has been described as the definitive dictionary of slang is gobsmacked, gutted, throwing up bunches, honked, hipped, and jacked like a cock-maggot in a sink-hole. A North Carolina school district has banned the dictionary under pressure from one of a growing number of conservative Christian groups using the internet to encourage school book bans across the US.

Jonathon Green, who compiled the 87,000 entries in the Cassell Dictionary of Slang, which was published last year, said that North Carolina is the only place he knows of where the book cannot be used in schools.

A Wake County school official told ABC News that five books, including the dictionary, were formally challenged. The others were listed as The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier, Junie B Jones and Some Sneaky, Peaky Spying by Barbara Park, Reluctantly Alice by Phyllis Reynolds and In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak. School officials acted after pressure from Called2Action, a local Christian activist group.

Some parents were also reportedly upset that their children were required to read books such as The Colour Purple by Alice Walker and Beloved by Toni Morrison, on the grounds that the books contain "vulgar and sexually explicit language".

"I'm very flattered," said Mr Green on Friday. "It's not exactly book-burning but, in the great tradition of book censorship, there never seems to be the slightest logic to it." He said that there were around 80 words in the dictionary that could sum up his reaction. The word that he would use for those who had pushed for the ban, he said, was "wowser", a 1910 Australian term for a "Bible-banging" puritan.

Called2Action, whose website asks people to "join our E-army today to take your place on the front lines of the battle for our children's future", did not respond to a call.

The ban comes a week after a children's book about Cuba was removed from Miami-Dade County school libraries because it painted too rosy a picture of life on the island. There were objections to pages reading: "People in Cuba eat, work, and go to school like you do". The American Civil Liberties Union has protested against the decision.